Special Reports

Vaccine distribution creates hope for new beginnings, normalcy

By Itzel Luna

With coronavirus cases consistently declining in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Unifed School District (LAUSD) has opened its frst COVID-19 vaccination site on Feb. 17 in hopes of expediting the process.

LAUSD schools have been closed for in-person instruction since March 13, 2020. Superintendent Austin Buetner announced that this vaccination site is an important step for resuming in-person instruction and prioritizing L.A. County school staf for COVID-19 vaccination. The vaccination site is located at the Roybal Learning Center near downtown Los Angeles and will be vaccinating school district staf aged 65 or older and employees who are currently working at coronavirus testing sites.

“This will not only protect the health and safety of the essential employees in schools but will provide enormous benefts to children and their families, leading to a faster reopening of schools,” Buetner said during his weekly broadcast on Feb. 15.

Teachers are expected to be added to the vaccine eligibility list in the next few weeks, according to Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. L.A. County met the threshold necessary on Feb. 16 to open elementary schools but LAUSD has not announced when in-person classes will resume.

As of now, no COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for those under the age of 16. This raises some concerns because LAUSD has more than 300,000 students who are under the age of 16.

Although the COVID-19 vaccine hasn’t been made widely available to teachers yet, Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS) social science teacher Brenda Helfng has received both doses of the vaccine through a site’s overfow line.

Helfng received the frst dose on Jan. 13 and the second dose on Feb. 12. She experienced side efects to the vaccine, including arm soreness, headaches and fatigue. However, she believes those symptoms are manageable and appreciates the sense of security that the vaccine has given her when she is in public.

“I have a level of comfort that I didn’t have a few months ago,” Helfng said.

DPMHS alumna Astrid Cabrera is a sophomore at the University of California, Los Angeles and has received both doses of the Moderna vaccine. Cabrera has worked at a COVID-19 testing site since December and currently works at a vaccination site in the San Fernando Valley. After she and her family got coronavirus last April, Cabrera felt motivated to not only get the vaccine but to infuence others as well.

“I felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to get vaccinated,” Cabrera said. “I also took it as an opportunity to share my experience with others as well as act as a primary source… to inform people of when it is their turn.”

As a vaccination site worker, Cabrera stresses that the vaccine is safe and efective. For students like DPMHS freshman Jefrey Brennenman, the vaccine ofers a sense of hope.

“I would take the vaccine,” Brennenman said. “I think the vaccine will be efective in slowing and eventually stopping the spread of COVID.”

According to Cabrera, the vaccine was not rushed since it did have to go through every phase and trial necessary for approval.

“We have waited an entire year now and the end is near. There’s some hope,” Cabrera said. “We’re slowing the spread and we can see it statistically. So, just hold on to that hope and be a little patient.”

Antonio Bedon contributed to this report. Instagram: @_itzelluna_

Photo provided by Astrid Cabrera While working at COVID-19 vaccinaton sites, Daniel Pearl Magnet High School alumna Astrid Cabrera has already recieved both doses of the Moderna vaccine.

Illustration by Shannon Sullivan

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"Help with school counseling and school mental health. So many problems that get thrown at school police, could have been deterred with proper school counseling and mental health funding. "

Infographic by Alliana Samonte On Feb. 17 and 18, 101 students and faculty staf from Daniel Pearl Magnet High School took an online survey created by Te Pearl Post regarding the movement of defunding the school police and what they believe the LASPD’s funds should be used for.

Students achieve change within LASPD

By Alliana Samonte and Evan Gleason

After months of delay, the Los Angeles Unifed School District agreed to cut a third of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) ofcers and reallocate funds in order to provide a stronger educational environment for Black students.

“(School policing) feels like you have no freedom and it feels like you are being watched at all times,” junior Ethan Perez, a student from Birmingham Community Charter High School said. “It doesn’t feel like a school experience.”

After agreeing to cut the LASPD budget by $25 million last summer, the LAUSD school board unanimously agreed on Feb. 16 to prohibit the use of pepper spray on students and reduce the LASPD by 133 positions, including 70 campus police positions. They will be replaced by “school climate coaches,” who will help mentor students.

“No person should feel the presence of a safety ofcer on a campus as an indictment of them or their character,” Superintendent Austin Beutner said during his weekly message on Feb. 15.

Given DPMHS’s small campus, 42.3% of students surveyed don’t believe school security is necessary.

The police ofcer reductions are a part of the Black Student Achievement Plan, which plans to support 53 schools with the highest Black student population by directing $36.5 million dollars every year to those schools. This money would then be used for school wellness programs, psychiatrist social workers, climate coaches and restorative justice advisors.

The multi-racial organization #Student Deserves has demanded a 35% cut to the school police budget so that they can be used to support the staf at schools with large Black communities. Led by students in schools across the district, #Student Deserves aims to defund school police.

“We want an end to random searches, policing, the defunding of public education, charter school expansion, reconstitutions,” #Student Deserves said on their website.

The LASPD frst emerged in the 1940s as a group of unarmed security guards who watched over campuses at night. LAUSD then ofcially structured the police force in 1984 and expanded it after mass shootings such as the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

“School police are needed for schools with a track record of criminality, gang violence, students fghting, students who brought dangerous weapons in the past or who assaulted school ofcials and student’s safety,” Daniel Pearl Magnet High School senior Sydnee Blueford said.

Many students attending public schools in LAUSD have had negative experiences with school police. At Fremont High School on Nov. 12, 2019, police ofcers decided to use pepper spray to stop multiple fghts that occurred on campus. Senior Edward Sasson from Grant High School once witnessed a fght where another student ended up hospitalized.

“The school police should have been there sooner but there were only two to three guards,” Sasson said.

While a campus ofcer isn’t assigned to DPMHS, the school had a campus aid to provide security but that position was eliminated in 2017.

“Honestly, because Daniel Pearl Magnet High School is a small school, I think it’s fne without the campus police, as there are hardly any incidents happening where police would be helpful,” sophomore Kennedy Fayton Guzman said.

Nancy Medrano contributed to this report. Instagram: @gleason_evan1115 @alliana.faith

Opinion School police presence intensifies students fear of campus danger

By Gabrielle Lashley

Ever since the police killing of George Floyd, awareness has been raised about defunding police, including school police. School districts in Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle declared that they will be removing ofcers from their schools, and making campuses a safe place again. While that is a wonderful thing, more work needs to be done before every single student across the U.S can confdently call their school a safe place. Having police ofcers on campus is an insufcient way of protecting students. According to a June 12 article published in The New York Times, many teachers, students and school ofcials believe that having police on campus is a danger to students and with good reason. There have been instances where on-campus ofcers have assaulted students, like this instance in the Los Angeles Unifed School District at Fremont High School in 2019, where police went to unnecessary means to break up a fght by using pepper spray on students. In a meeting held on Feb. 16, the Board of Education came to the decision to redirect the $25 million in funding cuts toward causes that support LAUSD’s Black students and ban the use of pepper spray on students, which should never have been an option in the frst place. While it’s amazing to see that steps are being taken in the right direction, we still have quite a way to go. According to an article released in 2018 by NPR.org, and another article released in 2020 by Chalkbeat, there is no concrete evidence that shows having police ofcers on campus decreases in-school crimes or makes schools safer. According to several New York Times articles, studies have actually shown that schools with more police ofcers have increased rates of suspensions, expulsions, and arrests of minors for rather insignifcant ofenses.

There are much better options to keep students safe rather than turning to law enforcement. Instead, it would be best to take a look at the root issue for why student bodies should need this kind of so-called “protection” in the frst place: their mental health. Defunding departments like the LASPD and using that money for “psychologists to provide counseling and nurses to advise students on drugs and alcohol,” according to The New York Times, would be a much more efcient, and a much less violent, way of keeping students out of trouble. To keep students from getting into altercations or dealing drugs, troubled students should be given the chance to take counseling and lessons teaching them about the dangers of substance abuse.

People who want ofcers on school grounds just want to keep their students out of danger, especially from things like mass shootings. While that isn’t a bad thing, they are going about it the wrong way. Not only are mass shootings incredibly rare, having police ofcers try to stop them instead of reaching a troubled student beforehand can just put more lives in danger. Trained professionals who can actually help troubled students better themselves are the way to go.

Making your school a police-free zone is a community efort. It’s important to talk to your fellow peers, parents, staf, and school ofcials about replacing the police in your school with counselors, and possibly nurses, if you want an overall safer environment that every student can fourish in. Schools are no place for law enforcement and it’s time people understood that.

Illustration by Gabrielle Lashley LAUSD agreed to cut the Los Angeles School Police Department budget and ban the use of pepper spray on their students. Te district have decided to distribute LASPD’s funds toward “school climate coaches.”

Instagram: @yogabbygabby_l